‘My Daphne kidnapped again?! Idiot!’
Don Bluth’s classic arcade releases Dragon’s Lair, Dragon’s Lair II: Timewarp and Space Ace are coming to Xbox One as The Dragon’s Lair Trilogy late next week. The three games have been “remastered and updated” for modern audiences, and this another one in a long, long, long list of re-releases for the trio of laserdisc games.
As if you need to be told, The Dragon’s Lair Trilogy consists of three beautiful, hand-animated movies, with players controlling heroes Dirk the Daring/Dexter on their respective quests to rescue the beautiful Princess Daphne/Kimberly and defeat the evil Singe/Borf. Essentially full-length quick-time events, the games are notoriously unforgiving, essentially boiling down to being an extended memory test.
However, they are undoubtedly iconic titles in the history of video games. This is mostly due to their awesome animation and unique technology, with Dragon’s Lair pulling in an absolute fortune upon release in 1983. I also personally have a very soft spot for the games, having spent many a 50p trying to complete them in my youth (an act I only achieved on Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace in public, though I later defeated my white whale, Timewarp, on the PC home edition).
The Dragon’s Lair Trilogy will be available to download on Xbox One May 17. Dragon’s Lair is currently available on PC, Atari ST, Halcyon, Laser Interactive, Mega CD, Jaguar CD, 3DO, DVD, Blu-Ray, CDi, NES, SNES, Game Boy Color, PS3, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Wii, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC 464, Nintendo DSi and iOS and Android devices.
